Spreadsheet applications such as, for example, Microsoft Excel®, are widely used in many fields and are increasingly important for analyzing data in today's business and computing environments. For example, data analysts use spreadsheet applications as tools for performing spreadsheet tasks including, but not limited to, consolidating and massaging data, producing charts, performing complex calculations, and the like.
The analysis on data input into spreadsheets is often complex. For example, it is not uncommon for spreadsheets to contain hundreds or thousands of formulae. These spreadsheets often comprise purely-functional programs that lack modularity, rely on copy/paste duplication (of formulae, of whole workbooks), utilize little or no naming, and are otherwise extremely burdensome to create and maintain.
User Defined Functions (UDFs) are supported by many spreadsheet applications and generally address the problems above. Unfortunately, utilizing UDF functionality in today's spreadsheet applications can be extremely complex and time consuming as users must learn at least one programming language, e.g., Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), C++, JavaScript, etc., to code and update the UDFs. Additionally, scalability and cross-platform portability can become an issue due to the lack of native support for UDFs.
Overall, the examples herein of some prior or related systems and their associated limitations are intended to be illustrative and not exclusive. Upon reading the following, other limitations of existing or prior systems will become apparent to those of skill in the art.